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Literary notes about annuity (AI summary)

The term “annuity” in literature has often been used as a symbol of financial stability, inheritance, and economic status, while also serving as a catalyst for plot developments and character revelations. In works by Dickens, annuities appear as instruments of security or luxury—whether it is a modest trust fund [1, 2, 3, 4, 5] or a means to secure a new life in France [6, 7]—reflecting the social nuances of money management in his era. Similarly, Dumas employs annuities in The Count of Monte Cristo not only to preserve wealth through reserved family papers or to settle generous life-long incomes [8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13] but also to underline strategic financial maneuvers. Authors like Thackeray [14, 15, 16, 17], Ibsen [18, 19, 20], and others such as George Eliot [21] and Anne Brontë [22] use annuities to explore themes of independence, misfortune, or the burdens of legacy. Even in non-fiction and historical accounts [23, 24, 25, 26], the annuity serves as a reflection of practical financial arrangements that resonate through time, making it a versatile metaphor for both personal security and broader societal values.
  1. And his trust is not a very difficult one, for it is only an annuity of a hundred and fifteen pounds.
    — from Our Mutual Friend by Charles Dickens
  2. You never turned your annuity to so good an account.' 'Good an account!
    — from Our Mutual Friend by Charles Dickens
  3. You buy her, at the same time, a small annuity.
    — from Our Mutual Friend by Charles Dickens
  4. You speak of that annuity in pounds sterling, but it is in reality so many pounds of beefsteaks and so many pints of porter.
    — from Our Mutual Friend by Charles Dickens
  5. 'I have never seen any money in the house,' said Mrs Lammle to the skeleton, 'except my own annuity.
    — from Our Mutual Friend by Charles Dickens
  6. France, and an annuity that would support you there in luxury, would give you a new lease of life, would transfer you to a new existence.
    — from Nicholas Nickleby by Charles Dickens
  7. A decent annuity would have restored her thoughts to their old train, at once.
    — from Nicholas Nickleby by Charles Dickens
  8. He had reserved from his annuity his family papers, his library, composed of five thousand volumes, and his famous breviary.
    — from The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas and Auguste Maquet
  9. “Well, you have an annuity.”
    — from The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas and Auguste Maquet
  10. We should command an annuity of 175,000 livres.
    — from The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas and Auguste Maquet
  11. I had often heard him complain of the disproportion of his rank with his fortune; and I advised him to invest all he had in an annuity.
    — from The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas and Auguste Maquet
  12. “Him to whom your excellency pays that little annuity.”
    — from The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas and Auguste Maquet
  13. “I can still say it is a dream; a retired baker, my poor Benedetto, is rich—he has an annuity.”
    — from The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas and Auguste Maquet
  14. Then the poor old gentleman revealed the whole truth to her—that his son was still paying the annuity, which his own imprudence had flung away.
    — from Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray
  15. Rawdon made her a tolerable annuity, and we may be sure that she was a woman who could make a little money go a great way, as the saying is.
    — from Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray
  16. Georgy's house is not a very lively one since Uncle Jos's annuity has been withdrawn and the little family are almost upon famine diet.
    — from Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray
  17. Miss Crawley had left her a little annuity.
    — from Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray
  18. I have given a mortgage on our annuity.
    — from Hedda Gabler by Henrik Ibsen
  19. On your—and Aunt Rina's annuity! MISS TESMAN.
    — from Hedda Gabler by Henrik Ibsen
  20. Your annuity—it's all that you and Aunt Rina have to live upon.
    — from Hedda Gabler by Henrik Ibsen
  21. But I shall not give up my Liberty for a dirty annuity.
    — from Middlemarch by George Eliot
  22. every hatom of his worldly goods, except just a trifle, by way of remembrance, to his nephew down in —shire, and an annuity to his wife.’
    — from The Tenant of Wildfell Hall by Anne Brontë
  23. I have given him the Parsonage of the Parish; and because I know his Value have settled upon him a good Annuity for Life.
    — from The Declaration of Independence of the United States of America by Thomas Jefferson
  24. Thrift is better than an annuity.
    — from A Polyglot of Foreign Proverbs
  25. Gallicciolli relates that in 1232 Giacomo Menotto left to the Church of S. Cassiano as an annuity libras denariorum venetorum quatuor .
    — from The Travels of Marco Polo — Volume 1 by Marco Polo and da Pisa Rusticiano
  26. At the annuity distribution of the Cherokee, shortly before, the chiefs had also been profuse in declarations of their desire for peace.
    — from Myths of the Cherokee by James Mooney

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